Cookbooks To Savor

Nigella Lawson: FeastWhat cooking, especially for family and loved-ones is all about.

Cecilia Hae-Jin Lee: Eating KoreanI would place this cookbook in my top 10 of all time. The recipes are delicious and each section is packed with the best of Korean home cooking. The stories are wonderful, too. Highly recommend.

Irma S. Rombauer: The Joy of Cooking (not the "All New", the old school one) I don't so much like this for main dish and salad recipes as for baked goods, sauces, and jams. I have my mother's copy, and when I was about 12, my favorite thing to do was to make tea sandwiches from this cookbook. Every weekend I'd make a couple of different kinds until I worked my way through all the spreads and fillings. A good basic cookbook.

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It's only taken five years, but Bunny will now eat ravioli. You'd think all kids would like tortellini, ravioli, or other stuffed pastas, from the get-go but not so. It took a long time for Bunny to warm up to ravioli, but now she loves it.

Our favorites are stuffed with some kind of meat, usually prosciutto. Lately we've been loving the grilled chicken-stuffed, triangle-shaped ravioli from Costco. It comes in a two-pack and, in our Costco, is located near the hummus. Because it's so flavorful it marries well with simple sauces.

To make the sauce above, I baked off a buttnernut squash then cubed it. I added it to a pan in which I sauteed garlic, shallots, and about 4 ounces of diced pancetta. I tossed the squash gently and just warmed it through. I added a spoonful of pasta cooking water to the sauce to loosen it, then tossed it with the cooked ravioli. A little parmesan cheese and fresh ground pepper were the finishing touches.

This classic Italian dish is the perfect way to transition from summer to fall. You combine hearty leftover bread—the drier the better—with juicy tomatoes, basil, and olive oil. Some people like to add all manner of things like cucumbers or peppers or olives. I'm a purist and I like to keep it simple. I might add some thinly sliced sweet red or yellow onion or a splash (just a splash) of red wine vinegar, but I try to let the tomatoes shine through.

For this recipe, I used about 1/3 of a loaf of very stale La Brea Bakery whole grain loaf, three large and juicy heirloom tomatoes, a couple handfuls of fresh basil, about 4 glugs of fruity olive oil (use the best you have), half a thinly sliced onion added just before serving, a slug of red wine vinegar, and salt and pepper.

You need to start the recipe at least two hours before you serve it. The best part about it is that it needs no refrigeration, in fact, refrigeration destroys the flavors, so make sure to keep and serve it at room temperature.

The procedure is as follows:

Dice bread into 1-inch cubes, and layer into a bowl.

Placed chopped tomatoes (no need to seed) and any accumulated juices into the bowl atop the tomatoes.

Salt the tomatoes, drizzle olive oil over everything, scatter basil over the top, and just let the bowl hang out on your kitchen counter for 2-4 hours.

Just before serving, add the onions and a splash of vinegar. Toss well. Salt and pepper to taste, and add a touch more olive oil. Serve. Serves 4.

You can also omit the last step and just serve it after the bread has had a chance to absorb the tomato juices.

The key to making pasta with tomato and eggplant sauce is to fry up the eggplant first and let it drain on paper towels while you make the sauce. That way it retains its crispy crunch at little longer. I like to toss the pasta with the tomato sauce, then add the eggplant, then add the fresh, chopped basil and cheese.

The simple tomato sauce was made with three types of tomatoes: Early Girls from the farmer's market, yellow tomatoes from the hippy church campfire night, and sweet cherry tomatoes from my friend Lia's garden. I sauteed sweet onions, lots of garlic, the tomatoes and a branch of basil from my patio until a uniform sauciness (heh) is achieved. I remove the basil branch before tossing the sauce with the pasta.

Along with the eggplant, I added cubed buffalo mozzarella (which I froze for about 10 minutes so it would retain its shape). It took the pasta over the top. J. loves to say that he can never order pasta in a restaurant ever. He said that about this, and I take that as the highest compliment.

Now, I'm not a huge pizza fan but, my family is. So I make it when forced to, and making it this way is almost too easy. I usually use whatever cheese I have on hand (in this case it was P'tit Basque, my five-year-old's fave) and make my own fresh tomato concassé to top the pizza. It goes like this.

Preheat oven to 350º.

Make the tomato concassé: In a blender or mini-food processor blend 6 small tomatoes (seeded, just give 'em a squeeze) with a glug of olive oil and a pinch of sea salt. Add a clove of garlic if you like.

Spread the tomato mixture over a store-bought round bread crust (I used Trader Joe's herb crust). Heap with shredded cheese. (photo) I use a MicroPlane medium ribbon grater to shred the cheese.

Bake for about 10 minutes. Remove from oven. Slice and serve to your pizza-lovers.

This is that salad that everyone makes in the summertime. I just love fresh (raw) corn, just off the cob, and summer tomatoes together. When I want to make it into a heartier main dish or side, I add pasta to it, and perhaps some cheese (crumbled sheep's milk chevre is wonderful in this).

The tomatoes (especially the Green Zebras) were so outstanding that I didn't add cheese to it. I didn't want to take away from their sweetness. I simply dressed the pasta with olive oil, salt and pepper and tossed it with the tomatoes and corn which I seasoned separately with salt, pepper, olive oil, and a splash of white balsamic vinegar. The final touch was the addition of freshly pick oregano and Italian and Thai basil, all of which I grow in pots on my patio.

We had company and I served this alongside grilled chicken paillard. It was a match made in heaven. It tasted so good sitting outside in our backyard sipping wine and chatting with our guest. We had leftovers of both so I just chopped the chicken into the pasta and we ate it the next day for lunch.

These skewers are like having an insalata caprese on a stick. These make a great party appetizer or you can pack them and take them to the park for a picnic with the kids. The best part about skewers is that the possibilities are endless. You could do cubes of low-fat cheese like gouda with green grapes, cheddar with chunks of nectarine, or pepper jack cheese and jalapeño-stuffed olives. Anything goes!

Drain mozzarella if using. Place cheese in a medium-sized bowl and toss with a drizzle of olive oil, salt, and pepper. Wrap each cheese ball or chunk with a basil leaf and skewer with a toothpick, then skewer a tomato. Arrange on a platter and serve.

There are fancier and better known Italian restaurants in San Francisco, but none reminds me of my Roman roots more than Ristorante Ideale (ee-day-AH-lay). This is true comfort food for me in every sense of the word. When I eat the pastas, I am immediately taken back to my aunt's kitchen in Rome where I spend most of my time sitting by her stove whenever I visit.

Though there are restaurants in San Francisco that get more attention for their "authentically Italian" pizzas, if the chef/owner of the restaurant isn't Italian that's a big strike to start. The pizzas at Ideale are incomparable. The thin cracker crust is just what you would find on the streets of Positano or Rome. Pizza has to be in your blood to have it taste like Italy (in my opinion), and this is the only pizza I will happily eat.

We had a lovely dinner at Ideale last night (until Wallie's meltdown caused us to have to leave), and the best surprise of all was seeing the owner's wife and her two girls. We used to be part of the same playgroup before we all moved away from San Francisco, but even though I know her, I would rave about the restaurant just the same. It truly is one of San Francisco's gems. You should go.

Grissini aren't on the menu, but my mom asked, and out they came, fresh from the oven. So good.

This is one of my kids' favorite meals. It combines everything they love to eat—cheese, corn, and polenta—in one dish. (My older daughter picks out the green chiles but my toddler eats them.) I serve this along side a green salad for an easy weeknight meal, but it could easily be a side dish for a Tex-Mex meal or an accompaniment to grilled chicken, pork, or shrimp.

Bring salted liquid to boil in a medium, heavy-bottomed pan. Slowly sprinkle in the polenta while stirring constantly. This should take 5-7 minutes. (Reduce heat to low, watch out for bubbling exploding polenta.)

Stir until polenta is incorporated with the liquid then add butter. Mix well, then add the chiles and corn.

Heat that through (about 3-5 minutes) then add cheese, reserving some for the top. Remove from hear (polenta will not be cooked through, that's okay.) Stir quickly then turn the mixture out into a greased glass Pyrex dish (prefereably with a cover) or similar pan. Sprinkle remaining cheese on top. Cover (or cover tightly with foil). Bake for 35-45 minutes until mixture is bubbly.

Heat a couple of glugs of olive oil in a saute pan over medium-high heat. Add two cloves of smashed garlic and saute until lightly browned but not burned. Add one bunch of asparagus that has been washed, trimmed, and cut on the bias. Cook stirring occassionally for 3-5 minutes until tender-crisp. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve at once.

When I saw my most favorite, only-available-in-Italy pasta at Costco last weekend, I almost fell over in astonishment. This is the pasta that my sister hand-carried—lovinglyhand-carried—back from Italy for me... The pasta that I've been rationing and only cooking with the most special sauces because it's so divine... The pasta that I requested my cousin to bring my when he visits form Italy this summer...is now available at Costco (in Mountain View, Calif.).

Foodies, non-foodies, YOU. Run to Costco and buy it by the case. Trust me. (You trusted me before when I told you that the imported Tuscan olive oil from Costco was da bomb.) This pasta is the most delicious, chewiest, most wonderfully-textured "everyday" pasta you will ever eat. And it's available at Costco.

Cooking Gear To Spice Things Up

All-Clad cookwareI use the stainless line. I love it because you can put it in the dishwasher. If you like to cook it is sooo worth it to have quality pots and pans. I recommend buying a set on sale and then filling in extras as you need them. (Watch for sales and specials.)

Cast Iron SkilletPlease get rid of all your teflon-coated non-stick plans and get a cast iron skillet. I use mine for searing meat, poultry, and fish and then finishing off in the oven. In fact, get two cast iron skillets—one large enough to hold two ribeyes and a smaller, fried-egg-sized one for making...well...eggs.

Food ProcessorQuickly slice/shred veggies and cheese, make hummus or other spreads in a snap, and make pie crust without making a mess.

Global KnivesI am partial to the 18 incher. Yep, I like big knives and I cannot lie. If you like to cook (or even if you don't) you deserve to have good knives. At least one.

Instant Hot Water DispenserIf you can't afford to have one built-in, this is a great alternative. It's nice to have boiling water at the push of a button to make tea, instant miso soup, or morning oatmeal for the kidlets.

Microplane Grater/ZesterUse this to grate citrus zest, nutmeg, and cheese. You could get a coarser one, but you don't need to. I have one and I use it for everything.

SilpatSilpat is a silicone mat used for baking. They come in various sizes. Items will not stick to it. It is a must for any home baker.

Stick or Immersion BlenderIt doesn't have to be fancy, but try and get the highest HP you can afford. I use my stick blender (+ attachments) for making salad dressing (weekly), pureeing soups, making babyfood, and whipping cream.